In commercial establishments, such as clothing and other retail stores, it is common to mount fixtures of various types on floor-anchored posts.
In one known arrangement, each post comprises an inner, elongate member and an outer shroud. The elongate member is made from a length of substantially square metal tubing with two oppositely facing longitudinal arrays of slots extending through flat walls of such member. The slots are configured to receive hooks on the fixture. The shroud is made from two similar pieces of sheet metal.
At the upper end of the shroud, a hook welded to an inner surface of each of the shroud pieces is hooked over one of the walls of the inner member. A metal sleeve is fitted over the lower ends of the shroud pieces, which are spaced from each other to permit access to the longitudinal arrays of fixture-mounting slots. The shroud pieces are welded to the sleeve.
Because the shroud pieces are welded to the sleeve, the shroud pieces cannot be pre-finished with an applied coating that can be damaged by heat from welding. Moreover, welding of the shroud pieces to the sleeve is an expensive, time-consuming task.
Hence, there has been a need, to which this invention is addressed, for a better way to assemble a fixture-mounting post.